santa rosa restaurants

Mark and Terri Stark's modern tavern on Santa Rosa's Fourth Street blends Jewish comfort food, Southern cooking, Korean heat and East Coast deli fare, with Tony Escalante as chef de cuisine. Plates for sharing come off a wood-fired grill: fried chicken thigh buns, BBQ'd bone marrow, miso black cod, oak-smoked ribs. Two patios; lunch and dinner daily.

Handmade pasta, a firewood oven and a menu that leans toward the sea set the tone at this downtown Santa Rosa osteria. Begin with shrimp or beef carpaccio and the Capriciano graze platter, then move on to lamb shank, Ora King salmon or a Margherita from the oven. Dinner is served every night but Tuesday.

A family-run trattoria in Vintners Square on the west side of Santa Rosa, with a wood-fired oven at its center. Start with roasted zucchini flowers or Mama Rosa's meatballs, then Neapolitan-style pies such as the Angelo with prosciutto and Calabrian chilies, veal ossobucco ravioli or bolognese gnocchi. A short Italian-leaning wine list, a patio and occasional live music.

A big, group-friendly barbecue room on Third Street that borrows from Texas, Memphis and the Carolinas. The smoker turns out salt-and-pepper brisket, Carolina-style pulled pork and pork belly, with briscuits on buttermilk biscuits, a brisket smash burger and sides such as tallow fries and mac and cheese. Happy hour runs from 3 to 6 at the bar.

Lazeaway Club is the poolside restaurant of the midcentury Flamingo Resort in Santa Rosa, open since 2021. The Cal-Pacific menu draws on coastal Mexico, Thailand, Korea and California's seasonal produce in bright, shareable plates, and the cocktail list leans to tiki classics and frozen sips. Music and the open-air setting lean into the resort's leisure-era roots.

In the clubhouse of a city-owned Santa Rosa golf course, Bennett Valley, the kitchen cooks vegetable-forward California food from chef Alec Graham. The terrace looks over the fairways to the Bennett Valley hills; weekend brunch runs from 9 to 2 and weekday happy hour from 2 to 5. Sonoma Valley and Bennett Valley wineries fill the list.

Vineyard rows and gardens surround this Vinarosa Resort dining room north of Santa Rosa, where executive chef Forest Kellogg cooks a farm-to-table menu. Weekday breakfast and lunch, weekend brunch and nightly dinner run from Sonoma French toast and chilaquiles verdes to Hog Island oysters and a flat iron steak with chimichurri. Russian River Valley wines lead the list.

A plain, friendly room on Mendocino Avenue where regulars are greeted by name and breakfast lasts until closing. Diner classics share the menu with Mexican morning plates and a Hawaiian touch: huevos divorciados, chilaquiles, the cook's special burrito, crab cake Benedict, berry French toast, loco moco. Milkshakes and lattes; no reservations. Open daily, 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Mark and Terri Stark's Montgomery Village restaurant reopened after a full makeover in blue, yellow and rattan, with more seats outdoors. The kitchen turns out made-to-order pizzas, housemade pasta such as short rib agnolotti, charred octopus and the lamb burger with rosemary fries regulars insisted on keeping. Cocktails and a Sonoma-leaning wine list fill out a relaxed all-day stop.

Chef-owner Liza Hinman has run The Spinster Sisters in Santa Rosa's SOFA arts district since 2012, changing the menu every week. Small plates such as smoked trout dip and kimchi-bacon deviled eggs go around the table before larger dishes like trout almandine or Mary's chicken with orzo. Natural, small-production wines favor women winemakers.

Mark and Terri Stark's steakhouse fills a Railroad Square building where Santa Rosa has dined since 1967. Mark Stark picks the beef himself, from a 28-day dry-aged bone-in ribeye to hickory smoked prime rib and filet mignon, with toppers priced à la carte. Lobster a la plancha and chilled oysters cover the sea, and the Lounge pours sixty-plus whiskeys.

Opened in July 2025 in the former Bear Republic brewpub, Waterhawk Lake Club brings the Brewsters Beer Garden team to the shore of Roberts Lake in Rohnert Park. Chef Justin Deering's menu suits long tables: soft-shell crab BLT, the Waterhawk burger, flatbreads, loaded fries and Valley Ford Creamery soft serve, with cocktails and local wines.

Mark and Terri Stark's first restaurant lost its 1886 roadhouse to the 2017 Tubbs Fire and reopened in 2019 in Santa Rosa's Town & Country Center. Small plates from many cuisines, such as tuna tartare tacos and barbecued oysters, arrive as they are ready, and most wines pour in two-ounce tastes for side-by-side Sonoma comparisons.